Lightbeam: A brilliant Firefox extension that lets you see who is tracking you online

Lightbeam is a Firefox extension that debuted as Collusion in 2011 and created by Mozilla software developer Atul Varma as an experimental add-on to visualize browsing behavior and data collection on the web. Watch this highly rated TED talk where Mozilla's Gary Kovacs introduces the Collusion add-on. Using interactive visualizations, lightbeam lets you see the full depth of the web today, including parts that are not transparent to an average user.

Lightbeam for Firefox: An add-on to track websites that monitor you

Visualize the Web: After you download and install the Lightbeam add-on to Firefox, it will begin to create a real time visualization of the websites you visit and all the third parties that are also active on those pages.

Analyze your connections: As your visualization grows, you can take a closer look into the relationships between the various first and third party sites that are stored in your data. You can also reset or save your data.

Some criticisms: As noted by a fellow redditor, "Lighbeam only shows you who is tracking you via cookies or some other means. It does nothing to show you who is intercepting the data along the wires, which is what the NSA does. It only tells you about benign threats (advertisers, etc) not potentially hostile ones (government agencies, etc). It also can do nothing to show you if your data is compromised at the server side." A very valid point in my opinion. Now that you have installed Lighbeam on your Firefox successfully, why not give it a try on techdrivein.com itself. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.